Moho Forum

I haven't figured this out yet. If I copy a smart bone, say a dial for a character's eyes to open and close, and I need to update the character's rigging in another file, can I just copy and paste the bone? I've tried this with only a partial success. The bone copies to the new file, it appears in the Actions panel, so that looks like Moho is ok with the procedure, but then it doesn't actually work. What would the correct procedure be?

Copy and paste the bone layer so it brings the other layers involved in the smart bone action too. But if you need it to work with new art, you'll have to recreate the actions for the new art layers.

synthsin75 wrote:Copy and paste the bone layer so it brings the other layers involved in the smart bone action too. But if you need it to work with new art, you'll have to recreate the actions for the new art layers.

Yes, I actually I did that. Here is what was wrong (could be useful?): I have a bone dial that commands a switch layer (for the character's mouth positions). I copied the bone and the corresponding switch layer containing the lip positions. When I double-clicked the action in the Action panel, the switch layer correctly displayed the different positions, but once in the Mainline again, the bone did nothing.
So, turns out the reason was that the new file in which I was updating my character is a 25 fps file, whereas the file in which I was doing my character designing and rigging is a 24 fps file. This caused all the actions to be off by two frames, enough to make stuff not work.

I spoke too early. Is still doesn't work right. The bone is there, when I double-click the action everything seems to work, scrolling the timeline the bone dial turns and the switch layer switches the mouth positions. Once back on the Mainline, it doesn't work. Now I'm totally puzzled.

Do you have any bones in between the switch and the smart bone layer. If so, these will keep the smart bone from reaching layers below that bone layer.

synthsin75 wrote:Do you have any bones in between the switch and the smart bone layer. If so, these will keep the smart bone from reaching layers below that bone layer.

There are many bones, three of which command the shape of one of the mouths in the switch layer. They make the mouth smile or frown and do other things. I cant' see why any of those should disturb the bone dial for the Switch layer, though. The Switch Layer just controls timing, not shapes or visibility. Hmm...

Reindeer wrote:There are many bones, three of which command the shape of one of the mouths in the switch layer. They make the mouth smile or frown and do other things. I cant' see why any of those should disturb the bone dial for the Switch layer, though. The Switch Layer just controls timing, not shapes or visibility. Hmm...

Only one bone layer can have influence on a layer, so if any lower bone layer has influence, no higher bone layer can.

synthsin75 wrote: Only one bone layer can have influence on a layer, so if any lower bone layer has influence, no higher bone layer can.

Pardon me but I don't think I understand what you mean by higher and lower. I find a layer can have different Smartbone Dials influence it. For example an eyeball can be made to squeeze with one dial and change color with another. I guess that's not what you meant, sorry.
Do you mean the actual order displayed in the Action panel (doesn't look like it, since they can be moved.

bone layer 1
- bone layer 2
---vector layer

If there's a bone in "bone layer 2", a smart bone in "bone layer 1" won't be able to influence "vector layer".

synthsin75 wrote:bone layer 1
- bone layer 2
---vector layer
If there's a bone in "bone layer 2", a smart bone in "bone layer 1" won't be able to influence "vector layer".

Aah, ok, thank you for that explanation. No, the smartbones (dials, in this case) in this case directly control vector layers from the top bone layer, with no extra or nested bone layers.
In the end I made things work, somehow. I had to actyally redo the actions for a few bones. This part of Moho has still come obscure areas for me. Especially, I must add, when a layer (any kind of layer) has a shifted Start Time. The 'no-man's-land' between the 'real' frame 0 and what seems for some aspects to be a shifted frame 0, and how bones and layers behave in that situation, is something that still eludes me.

I wouldn't suggest using smart bones with sequencer shifted layers. Better to move keyframes than shift the layers.

synthsin75 wrote:I wouldn't suggest using smart bones with sequencer shifted layers. Better to move keyframes than shift the layers.

The Sequencer is incredibly useful to place animated events (for example: an explosion). I've used it even to create a sort of 'montage' of different scenes by giving folder groups different start times. But it can be quite unpredictable as in how it behaves.